Hi Guys, I developed http://www.itsabot.com, which was designed to detect twitter bots. I am happy to open this up as a larger project if people want - and move it into an open source project with spam accounts, not just bots.
Paul 2009/5/19 sillyt...@googlemail.com <sillyt...@googlemail.com> > > We had a chat about Twitter spam yesterday and would like a points > based approach to user ranking or spam rating. For those of us working > on 3rd party applications, having a spam score to be able to make > quick decisions on with regard to searches would be very useful. > > For example, a new user would have a higher 'spam-rating' than a long > time user. Someone with a huge follow:follower ratio similarly. Given > how spam is used on Twitter, there are several categories which could > be dealt with at run-time on a server but less easily on a live > application. > > BTW I worry that to join the abuse team one has to "have what it > takes". Does that mean they hand out large amounts of abuse ?-) > > On May 18, 7:12 pm, Doug Williams <d...@twitter.com> wrote: > > We have a team dedicated to controlling the number of spam messages and > > accounts in the system. The number of accounts, sophistication, and > > techniques are constantly growing. The team is doing a great job of > > isolating known attack vectors. Obviously there is still work to be > > done. The abuse team is hiring. If you think you have what it takes, > please > > apply:http://twitter.com/jobs > > Thanks, > > Doug > > -- > > > > Doug Williams > > Twitter Platform Supporthttp://twitter.com/dougw > > > > On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 8:14 PM, sillyt...@googlemail.com < > > > > sillyt...@googlemail.com> wrote: > > > > > I'm working as part of the #twumpet team and as part of our project > > > we're developing an application as well as running some Twitter events > > > - the first having been Eurovision earlier today. > > > > > As we hit the top trend, #twumpet got - and is still getting - > > > enormous amounts of spam. Spammers are signing up, blitzing messages > > > through one immediately after another, and then moving on to the next > > > account. > > > > > Does anyone know if Twitter are going to stop users firing tweets off > > > one after another so blatently like this? I just checked on a couple > > > of top trends and all I can see is spammers tonight. > > > > > Also, as a developer working on a project which will be dealing with > > > trending topics and popular searches, I need a quick way to throw out > > > spam messages. > > > > > I have a couple of ideas for strategies but would be interested in > > > discussing them, and perhaps a group effort which used Twitter itself > > > for rapid short term spam classification & reporting [through Twitter > > > search or a further API]. The one thing about spammers is they appear > > > and disappear extremely quickly so any lists would be very short and > > > 'live', at least for now... > > > > > @newretro >
